Michigan Supreme Court

Lansing, Michigan

Marilyn Kelly,

 Chief Justice

Michael F. Cavanagh

Elizabeth A. Weaver

Maura D. Corrigan

Robert P. Young, Jr.

Stephen J. Markman

Diane M. Hathaway, Justices

Order 

June 12, 2009 

137979 

PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v SC: 137979 

 COA: 288318 

Grand Traverse CC: 

NATHANIEL WARD, 07-010368-FH 

Defendant-Appellant. 

_________________________________________/ 

 On order of the Court, the application for leave to appeal the November 12, 2008 

order of the Court of Appeals is considered, and it is DENIED, because we are not 

persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this Court. 

 YOUNG, J. (concurring). 

 I concur in this Court’s order denying defendant’s application for leave to appeal 

and write separately to respond to Chief Justice Kelly’s dissent. Chief Justice Kelly’s 

dissent reveals an unusual perspective of criminal law and criminality in general. What 

Chief Justice Kelly vilifies as a “ruse” and “subterfuge” is a legitimate law enforcement 

tactic to safely apprehend a known drug dealer. Further, because offense variable (OV) 

19, MCL 777.49, plainly does not include an intent element, the caselaw from other states 

that Chief Justice Kelly cites is irrelevant. Accordingly, there is no basis in the law for 

rescoring OV 19, as Chief Justice Kelly urges. 

 Defendant is a career drug dealer who sold heroin, powder cocaine, and crack 

cocaine to a confidential informant and an undercover officer on three separate occasions 

between April 24, 2007, and April 30, 2007. Because the police officers possessed cash 

seized from defendant during a traffic stop on April 16, 2007,1

 they asked defendant to 

meet at a Michigan State Police post for return of the money seized. Defendant agreed 

and they were able to arrest him for the three prior drug sales in the safety of a controlled 

 

1

 The police officers seized the money because a police dog indicated that the money 

contained cocaine and heroin residue. 
2

environment. I agree that this was a “ruse,” but it offends no principle of law to use a 

criminal’s stupidity against him. 

 Chief Justice Kelly chooses to chastise the police officers for their “subterfuge” 

rather than the defendant, who knowingly carried 47 grams of crack cocaine and 20 

packets of heroin into a police station and then attempted to smuggle the same 47 grams 

of crack cocaine and packets of heroin into the Grand Traverse County Jail. Chief Justice 

Kelly asserts that defendant “could hardly be said to have intended to engage in conduct 

that ‘threatened the security of a penal institution.’”2

 It is hard to believe that anyone 

could sincerely dispute that the presence of illicit drugs “threaten[s] the security of a 

penal institution.” Moreover, it was not “only because of a police subterfuge”3

 that 

defendant’s behavior was a threat to the security of a penal institution. Defendant could 

have told the officers that he had the 47 grams of crack cocaine and packets of heroin in 

his underwear when he was arrested at the station. Instead, he chose to attempt to 

smuggle this considerable amount of drugs into the county jail. Chief Justice Kelly 

suggests that defendant may be excused from the consequences of that choice “because 

he wished not to be charged for possession with intent to deliver prohibited substances in 

addition to his other crimes.”4

 A criminal’s interest in avoiding punishment for his 

crimes does not, has never, and, hopefully, will never excuse criminal behavior. The law 

does not require courts to ignore criminal behavior; rather, it assigns consequences. 

“[T]rying to avoid having drugs . . . detected during booking”5

 is deviant behavior for 

which the law assigned a consequence—25 points for OV 19. That we may be able to 

theorize a defendant’s motive to conceal his crime does not decriminalize the act. 

 OV 19 does not contain a “ruse” exception to its provisions. And, contrary to 

Chief Justice Kelly’s argument, OV 19 does not contain an intent element. Whether 

defendant “intended to ‘threaten the security of a penal institution’” is irrelevant.6

 

Twenty-five points are assigned when “the offender by his or her conduct threatened the 

security of a penal institution.” MCL 777.49(a) (emphasis added). Defendant’s conduct 

—attempting to smuggle 47 grams of crack cocaine and packets of heroin into the jail—

“threatened the security of a penal institution”; thus, OV 19 was properly scored. 

 Because I do not share Chief Justice Kelly’s vision of criminal jurisprudence, I 

concur in this Court’s order denying leave to appeal. 

 

2 Post at 3, quoting MCL 777.49(a). 

3 Post at 3. 

4 Post at 3. 

5 Post at 5. 

6 Post at 3 (emphasis added). 
3

 CORRIGAN, J., joins the statement of YOUNG, J. 

 KELLY, C.J. (dissenting). 

 I would grant leave to appeal to consider the scoring of offense variable (OV) 19. 

Defendant was brought to the police station as part of a police ruse. The officers told 

defendant that he could recover some money that had been seized during a traffic stop if 

he came to the station. When he arrived, he was arrested and sent to the jail for booking. 

During a strip search at the jail, officers found 47 grams of crack cocaine and numerous 

packets of heroin in his underwear. 

 Clearly, defendant should not have been in possession of illegal drugs and should 

not have taken them to the police station. But his purpose in going there was not to deal 

drugs. He could hardly be said to have intended to engage in conduct that “threatened the 

security of a penal institution.”7

 If his behavior can be said to have been a threat, 

regardless of defendant’s intent, it must be conceded that the threat existed only because 

of a police subterfuge.8

 I believe this crucial fact could make defendant’s conduct an 

insufficient basis for the scoring of OV 19 here. 

 Justice Young observes that defendant could have avoided having his sentence 

increased by telling the officers that he carried prohibited substances on his person when 

he was arrested at the station. He points out that it was defendant’s choice to bring the 

drugs into the county jail. However, defendant chose not to reveal the drugs, presumably 

because he wished not to be charged for possession with intent to deliver prohibited 

substances in addition to his other crimes. It seems unlikely that he chose to conceal the 

drugs because he intended to “threaten the security of a penal institution.” 

 I believe that scoring points for OV 19 may require that a defendant intend to 

threaten the security of a penal institution. Caselaw from our sister states supports the 

conclusion that intent is necessary for a defendant to be liable for conduct of this sort.9

 

Courts in some other jurisdictions have come to contrary conclusions.10 Moreover, this 

 

7

 MCL 777.49(a). 

8

 In his concurring statement, Justice Young agrees that the police conduct in this case 

was a “ruse” to get defendant to the police station. 

9 State v Cole, 142 NM 325 (2007); State v Sowry, 155 Ohio App 3d 742 (2004); State v 

Tippetts, 180 Or App 350 (2002). 

10 State v Carr, 2008 WL 4368240 * 5 (Tenn Crim App, 2008); State v Winsor, 110 

SW3d 882, 886-888 (Mo App, 2003); Brown v State, 89 SW3d 630, 633 (Tex Crim App, 

2002); State v Canas, 597 NW2d 488, 496-497 (Iowa, 1999), abrogated in part on other 

grounds by State v Turner, 630 NW2d 601, 606 n 2 (Iowa, 2001). 
4

issue is currently before the supreme courts of Washington and California.11 Clearly, the 

issue is of jurisprudential significance and this Court should not summarily dismiss it. 

 Courts in other jurisdictions have disagreed over whether a defendant’s culpability 

is affected by the defendant’s failure to reveal the existence of contraband on his or her 

person before booking.12 This was the basis for the trial court’s scoring of OV 19 and is 

the key argument advanced by Justice Young’s concurrence. My conclusion that further 

review of this issue is warranted is supported by these varying outcomes under similar 

circumstances. 

 The Washington Court of Appeals recently addressed this issue in the same 

sentencing enhancement context at issue in this case. In State v Eaton,

13 the defendant 

was arrested for driving while under the influence (DUI) and transported to the county 

jail. During a search of his person, an officer discovered methamphetamine. Defendant 

was charged with one count of DUI and one count of possession of a controlled 

substance. The state sought a sentencing enhancement under RCW 9.94A.533(5)(c), 

which allows a court to add 12 months to a defendant’s sentence if the offense was 

committed “while in a county jail or state correctional facility.” Although defendant 

objected to the sentencing enhancement, the trial court increased defendant’s sentence 

from 0 to 6 months to 12 to 18 months. 

 The Washington Court of Appeals reversed. The Court first noted that “this 

sentence enhancement is not a separate sentence or a separate substantive crime. . . . 

Rather, it presupposes that the defendant’s behavior already constitutes a crime, such as 

 

11 State v Eaton, 143 Wash App 155 (2008), review granted 164 Wash 2d 1013 (2008); 

People v Gastello, 57 Cal Rptr 3d 293 (2007), review granted and opinion superseded by

People v Gastello, 61 Cal Rptr 3d 1 (2007). 

12 Compare Cole, supra at 328 (“It is of no moment . . . that Defendant could have 

avoided the charge of bringing contraband into a jail by admitting to the booking officer 

that he possessed marijuana. The dispositive issue is that Defendant cannot be held liable 

for bringing contraband into a jail when he did not do so voluntarily.”) with Canas, supra

at 496 (upholding defendant’s conviction after noting that the defendant “had the option 

of disclosing the presence of the drugs concealed on his person before he entered the jail 

and became guilty of the additional offense of introducing controlled substances into a 

detention facility”). 

13 State v Eaton, supra. 
I, Corbin R. Davis, Clerk of the Michigan Supreme Court, certify that the 

foregoing is a true and complete copy of the order entered at the direction of the Court. 

 _________________________________________ 

 Clerk

June 12, 2009 

d0609 

 

5

possession of a controlled substance.”14 Nevertheless, the court ultimately determined 

that the legislature “did not intend the unlikely, absurd, or strained consequence of 

punishing a defendant for his involuntary act.”15

 The argument accepted by the court in Eaton is even more persuasive in the 

context of OV 19. Many of the statutes in Eaton and the other cited cases explicitly did 

not contain an intent requirement. The courts reversed the convictions because they 

considered the requirement that conduct be volitional as part of the actus reus of the 

crime. Even if one rejects that argument, here OV 19 arguably does include an intent 

requirement because of the Legislature’s use of the word “threatened.” Black’s Law 

Dictionary’s definition of “threat” includes the element of the intention to cause loss or 

harm to something.16 In my mind, the use of this language makes defendant’s argument 

more persuasive and worthy of further review. I would have no difficulty with the 

scoring of OV 19 in this case if the OV provided extra points for trying to avoid having 

drugs being detected during a booking, or, as Justice Young suggests, simply for 

“stupidity.” But it does neither. I think the assessment of 25 points here may have 

lengthened defendant’s sentence for conduct not covered by OV 19.17

 Hence, I would grant leave to appeal to consider the scoring of OV 19. 

 

14 Eaton, supra at 160. 

15 Id. at 164. In reaching this conclusion, the court observed that even with crimes and 

sentence enhancements with no mens rea requirement “[t]here is a certain minimal 

mental element required in order to establish the actus reus itself. This is the element of 

volition.” Id. at 160 (quoting State v Utter, 4 Wash App 137 [1971]). Requiring a 

voluntary action to impose criminal liability finds support in LaFave, Substantive 

Criminal Law, § 6.1(c), pp 425-426 (2d ed). 

16 Black’s Law Dictionary (8th ed) defines “threat” as “[a] communicated intent to inflict 

harm or loss on another or on another’s property . . . .” 

17 It seems I should be entitled to this and similar conclusions without being accused of 

holding “an unusual perspective of criminal law and criminality in general,” especially 

given the divergent outcomes on the issue in other states.